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May 9-15: Free Jazz

Prepare for riffing and improvisation, Taurus

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)Free jazz is a type of music that emerged in the 1950s as a rebellion against jazz conventions. Its meter is fluid and its harmonies unfamiliar, sometimes atonal. Song structures may be experimental and unpredictable. A key element in free jazz is collective improvisation—riffing done not just by a featured soloist, but by the entire group of musicians playing together. To prepare for your adventures in the coming days, Taurus—which I suspect will have resemblances to free jazz—you might want to listen to music by its pioneers, like Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, and Sun Ra. Whatever you do, don’t fall prey to scapabobididdilywiddilydoobapaphobia, which is the fear of freestyle jazz.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)Apple and Exxon are the most valuable companies in America. In third place, worth more than $350 billion, is Google. Back in 1999, when the future Internet giant was less than a year old, Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page tried to sell their baby for a mere million dollars. The potential buyer was Excite, an online service that was thriving at the time. But Excite’s CEO turned down the offer, leaving Brin and Page to soldier onward by themselves. Lucky for them, right? Today they’re rich and powerful. I foresee the possibility of a comparable development in your life, Gemini. An apparent “failure” may, in hindsight, turn out to be the seed of a future success.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” is an English-language proverb. It means that you will no longer have your cake if you eat it all up. The Albanian version of the adage is “You can’t go for a swim without getting wet. “ Hungarians say, “It’s impossible to ride two horses with one butt.” According to my analysis, Cancerian, you will soon disprove this folk wisdom. You will, in effect, be able to eat you cake and still have it. You will somehow stay dry as you take a dip. You will figure out a way to ride two horses with your one butt.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)I know this might come as a shock, Leo, but ... are you ready? ... you are God! Or at least godlike. An influx of crazy yet useful magic from the Divine Wow is boosting your personal power way beyond normal levels. There’s so much primal mojo flowing through you that it will be hard if not impossible for you to make mistakes. Don’t fret, though. Your stint as the Wild Sublime Golden Master of Reality probably won’t last for more than two weeks, three tops. I’m sure that won’t be long enough for you to turn into a raving megalomaniac with 10,000 cult followers.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)In your imagination, take a trip many years into the future. See yourself as you are now, sitting next to the wise elder you will be then. The two of you are lounging on a beach and gazing at a lake. It’s twilight. A warm breeze feels good. You turn to your older self and say, “Do you have any regrets? Is there anything you wish you had done but did not do?” Your older self tells you what that thing is. (Hear it now.) And you reply, “Tomorrow I will begin working to change all that.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)Over a hundred years ago, the cattle industry pressured the U.S. government to kill off wolves in Yellowstone National Park. By 1926 the wolves had all but vanished. In the following decades, elk herds grew unnaturally big, no longer hunted by their natural predator. The elk decimated the berry bushes of Yellowstone, eating the wild fruit with such voracity that grizzly bears and many other species went hungry. In 1995, environmentalists and conservationists got clearance to re-introduce wolves to the area. Now the berry bushes are flourishing again. Grizzlies are thriving, as are other mammals that had been deprived. I regard this vignette as an allegory for your life in the coming months, Libra. It’s time to do the equivalent of replenishing the wolf population. Correct the imbalance.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)I have no problem with you listening closely to the voices in your head. Although there might be some weird counsel flowing from some of them, it’s also possible that one of those voices might have sparkling insights to offer. As for the voices that are delivering messages from your lower regions, in the vicinity of your reproductive organs: I’m not opposed to you hearing them out, either. But I hope you will be most attentive and receptive to the voices in your heart. While they are not infallible, they are likely to contain a higher percentage of useful truth than those other two sources.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)Kangaroo rats live in the desert. They’re at home there, having evolved over millennia to thrive in the arid conditions. So well-adapted are they that they can go a very long time without drinking water. While it’s admirable to have achieved such a high level of accommodation to their environment, I don’t recommend that you do something comparable. In fact, its probably better if you don’t adjust to some of the harsher aspects of your environment. Now might be a good time to acknowledge this fact and start planning an alternate solution.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled,” said writer William Blake. I think you will challenge this theory in the coming weeks, Capricorn. Your passions will definitely not be weak. They may even verge on being volcanic. And yet I bet you will manage them fairy well. By that I mean you will express them with grace and power rather than allowing them to overwhelm you and cause a messy ruckus. You won’t need to tamp them down and bottle them up because you will find a way to be both uninhibited and disciplined as you give them their chance to play.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)Would you please go spend some quality time having non-goal-oriented fun? Can I convince you to lounge around in fantasyland as you empty your beautiful head of all compulsions to prove yourself and meet people’s expectations? Will you listen to me if I suggest that you take off the mask that’s stuck to your face and make funny faces in the mirror? You need a nice long nap, gorgeous. Two or three nice long naps. Bake some damn cookies, even if you’ve never done so. Soak your feet in epsom salts as you binge-watch a TV show that stimulates a thousand emotions. Lie in the grass and stare lovingly at the sky for as long as it takes to recharge your spiritual batteries.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)Dear Pisceans: Your evil twins have asked me to speak to you on their behalf. They say they want to apologize for the misunderstandings that may have arisen from their innocent desire to show you what you had been missing. Their intent was not at all hostile or subversive. They simply wanted to fill in some gaps in your education. OK? Next your evil twins want to humbly request that you no longer refer to them as “Evil Twin,” but instead pick a more affectionate name, like, say “Sweet Mess” or “Tough Lover.” If you promise to treat them with more geniality, they will guarantee not to be so tricky and enigmatic.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)Fireworks displays excite the eyes and lift the spirit. But the smoke and dust they produce can harm the lungs with residues of heavy metals. The toxic chemicals they release may pollute streams and lakes and even groundwater. So is there any alternative? Not yet. No one has come up with a more benign variety of fireworks. But if it happens soon, I bet it will be due to the efforts of an enterprising Aries researcher. Your tribe is entering a phase when you will have good ideas about how to make risky fun safer, how to ensure vigorous adventures are healthy, and how to maintain constructive relationships with exciting influences.

Go to RealAstrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.